The Mysterious Giant Snake Of North-Africa
In Northern Africa from Mali till Egypt several accounts of Giant snakes are reported, of which most of them resembling a lot of characteristics with the Madtsoiids, Giant Ancient predecessors of the Boidae that occurred in the Tropics and Sub°tropics for millions of years. Without exaggerating if these records are genuine and proper calculated, this could go about the largest snakes this earth has ever seen. Some records are dated back to the Roman age, others are from only a decade ago. The latest reports came from Paleontological researchers and are made just in the North of Morocco. In 1903 and recently in 1993 some interesting and large vertebrae and a jawbone were discovered in Mali and allegedly belonged to a very large snake. The snake proved to be one of the Madtsoiids and is given the name Gigantophis garstinii ( after Garstinii,) it´s great estimated length and both it´s period of occurrence still puzzled many scientists as this Giant snake that is calculated between 11,7 to 18 meters long (Scanlon, Bloch, 2011) Gigantophis is known from fragments of jaw found in Egypt and could possibly have reached 60 feet (18,3 m). Scientists have calculated, however, the fact that a snake over 50 feet (15m) in length would be unable to support itself and move on land because it´s great weight that may be collapsing its lung capacity is much discussed even in modern day Anaconda´s or pythons. If it was indeed longer than this enigmatic length, Gigantophis may have been aquatic or semiaquatic like our Green Anaconda has proven to be. Another snake genus which was specially adapted to an aquatic lifestyle in the near region occurred in the coastal marshes and swamps in Paleocene Northern Africa. These Paleophis sp. could also grow to massive dimensions and proved just recently that we don´t know much about ancient giant snakes. terrestrial or aquatic. The locations where Gigantophis specimen are found used to be much damp and swampy compared to nowadays dry savannas. In the Eocene until the late Pleistocene rainforest and peatlands next to mangrove coastal wetlands were greatly spread across the Afro-tropical region. It has been described of predating on predecessors of modern Elephants, the Probodiscians looked a lot like a modern day Rhinoceros. Also comparable were the dimensions of these two. The times of living distribution of these snakes had to be from the Miocene till late Pleistocene times. Some accounts say it´s it possible that the Gigantophis even survived until the Holocene as it occurred at least till around 40,000 - 25,000 years ago till maybe less than 10,000 years. If these are the facts than Gigantophis had plenty of time to develop specialized physical characteristics and under good circumstances much growing to do, as it could become the greatest snake and terrestrial land vertebrate alive after the Riss period. Still much about these snakes isn´t known like development, age of sex, behavior and lifespan. The sub-fossilized bones that are examined prove to be, that there´s more but more proof and physical material is needed to determine age and growing sequences as feeding behavior. If eventually bones or prints of DNA can show what age these snakes are and become, only then proper calculations are possible. Also, the health status and environmental circumstances can tell a lot more of the physical conditions and estimated maximum dimensions of these giant snakes. Modern accounts and sightings of giant snakes in the Afrotropical region still do occur from the Senegal, Guinee, DRC Congo, and Rwanda. Eye-witnesses called in snake encounters of truly gigantic proportions from 15 meters till over 20 meters in length. Some stories about in the forested southern parts of Central Africa show stories about even larger snakes in excess of 100 feet,(33 m) but if a snake larger than 13 or 14 meters could be brought in, then we can examine and have final proof of such gigantic ophidians alive. Scientists are desperately searching for proof of such giants from ancient relics or modern day species. Snakes and reptiles of the world, ISBN 987-1-84013-919-8, P334 Bernard Heuvelmans; On the track of Unknown animals, Karl P. Shuker; The Beasts that hide from man, Category:Snakes Category:Reptile Category:Reptiles and Amphibians Category:Giant cryptid Category:Aquatic-based Cryptid Category:Cryptid Wiki Category:Cryptids Category:Africa